Lake, River, or Ocean Views From Ski Areas

[jamesdeluxe]

Lake Pend Oreille (Pond-der-ray). Perhaps the most impressive lake view I've ever seen from the 100 ski areas I've visited.

Better than Tahoe from Homewood, Diamond Peak, Heavenly or even Palisades and Northstar?

You may have noticed that I'm a big fan of skiing alongside bodies of water. I lined up these pix a couple years ago during off-season and never got around to posting them but since Tseeb seems to be throwing down the gauntlet above to jimk above, maybe now's the time.

Following are mine taken from lift-served mountains during ski season. Feel free to add your one best shot from specific ski areas. It's likely that Tony has the most exotic one, from the bottom of the earth.

Thollon les Mémises, France: Overlooking Lake Geneva

Stoos, Switzerland: Overlooking Lake Lucerne

Rigi, Switzerland: Overlooking Lake Lucerne

Klewenalp, Switzerland: Overlooking Lake Lucerne

Zwölferhorn, Austria: Overlooking Wolfgang Lake

Axalp, Switzerland: Overlooking Lake Brienz

Corviglia, Switzerland: Overlooking the tip of Lake Silvaplana

Corvatsch, Switzlerland: Overlooking Lake Silvaplana

Bezau, Austria: Overlooking Lake Constance

Schweitzer, ID: Overlooking Lake Pend Oreille

Owl's Head, Quebec: Overlooking Lake Memphrémagog

Le Massif, Quebec: Overlooking the St. Lawrence River

Mont Sainte Anne, Quebec: Overlooking The St. Lawrence River and the northern tip of 20-mile-long island Orléans:

Mont Orford, Quebec: Overlooking Lake Memphrémagog

La Reserve, Quebec: Overlooking Ouareau Lake

 

[MarzNC]

Quite a collection!

Got my first lake view in Idaho from the top of Tamarack.

 

[Skieric]

Blue Mountain, my home mountain on the shore of the Georgian Bay (Lake Huron)

 

[jimk]

12 years ago I wrote an article on this subject.
I guess I'm way overdue for an update.

My wife retired from skiing about a dozen years ago, but skied for 40 years before that. Recently at Schweitzer she took a chair lift ride with me for a scenic lunch in the SkyHouse Restaurant. Here's a fun photo I took of her taking a photo of the lake from the summit.

 

[Tony Crocker]

tseeb said:

Better than Tahoe from Homewood, Diamond Peak, Heavenly or even Palisades and Northstar?

In JimK's dcski article he ranks Homewod first and Heavenly fourth. I've only skied Homewood one day but agree it has the best Tahoe views.

While we are promoting home areas, here's a late afternoon view from Mt. Baldy illuminating ships outside L.A. Harbor with the full length of Catalina Island in the background.

It's likely that Tony has the most exotic one, from the bottom of the earth.

Would that be this one?

That is a leading candidate for the best ski picture I have ever taken.

In North America I am impressed with Alyeska's view down to Turnagain Arm.

This was our 2015 Christmas card picture from Arctic Heliskiing on Iceland's Troll Peninsula.

Though I often tout the scenery in the Alps, I don't recall any where bodies of water were prominent. There was just a peek at the Mediterranean in the distance from Auron, nothing like the sweeping Pacific view from Baldy.

 

[Sbooker]

Some great shots above.

Edit. I think the spots that @jamesdeluxe posted are easiest for me to bag.

 

[Sbooker]

That is a leading candidate for the best ski picture I have ever taken.

Can you comment on snow quality please? Obviously it is not high elevation but I assume the temp was low.

 

[Tony Crocker]

The Antarctic Peninsula is a marine environment and mid-November is spring. Temps were very average for resorts, say -5C to 0C. We didn't have much sun, but when we did it could melt/freeze sunny exposures. Wind effect was another factor, as the Antarctic can be very windy. That pic is from the third day, which was the only real powder skiing. Much of the time it was like groomed skiing with a thin even layer of soft snow over whatever the base was. If terrain was steep, edging would often cut through to a more hardpacked base. But of course that just my trip. YMMV.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

12 years ago I wrote an article on this subject.

I knew I'd come across that piece a while back. Had no idea that it was you!

Interesting that the only water pic jimk and I have in common is Le Massif, which IMO still wins -- not as the most scenic view, but no question the most impressive. The vista is 16 miles to the other side of the river and approx. 30 miles left to right. You'd need to stitch together several photos into a wide-screen shot, which would seriously compress the pic and diminish the effect you get in person. Freighter ships moving amidst the ice floes complete the austere, overwhelming sensation in the middle of winter.

You can't tell from my isolated photo at the top of the thread, but the left-to-right panorama from Thollon les Mémises is similar to Le Massif: 30 miles. As mentioned in my 2017 trip report, the most interesting part for me is seeing the town of Montreux on the right end of the lake and imagining "smoke on the water" from that 1971 casino fire during a Frank Zappa concert.

 

[jamesdeluxe]

Got my first lake view in Idaho from the top of Tamarack.

I've always been kinda fascinated by Tamarack -- how it went bankrupt (removed the lifts, I believe?) and was brought back to life a few years later.

You should repost the reports from your recent Idaho visit here. I'm sure that the FTOer who lives there @snowave will be interested in your takeaways. It's easy to do the whole thing, text and photos, in one copy/paste, which you can then edit.